The Act of Observing
by Sabine101
Summary: MSR, post-"all things"


  
TITLE: The Act of Observing  
AUTHOR: Sabine  
CATEGORY: post-"all things", V, MSR  
RATING: PG  
SUMMARY: I had to ask myself what the girl with the hat really wanted.  
DISCLAIMER: Consider it disclaimed. Please don't pay me.  
ARCHIVE: Gossamer, Xemplary, Spookys okay. Anywhere else okay too.   
Tell, don't ask.  
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: For the beloved Virginians, my virtual home. Thanks   
specifically to Punk and Jodi for excellent drive-thru beta, and to   
Kelly Keil for grammar!beta, insight, and the title. Doubleplus thanks   
to wen for orchestral tweaks, and to Livia for dubbing me "The   
Alternative Shipper." And, of course, as always, for the qowf, because   
it's been so long.  
  
"We are in a room without a door  
and I am sure without a doubt  
they're gonna want to know how we got in here  
and they're gonna want to know how we plan to get out."  
- Ani DiFranco, "Shameless"  
  
The Act of Observing  
  
I'm here, Mulder, because the girl with the hat told me to be.   
  
*  
  
Couched only in the click-click whitenoise of heels on hardwood and the   
shuffff of breath through her nose she crept out and outside it was   
barely dawn.  
  
Outside it was barely dawn, tempting warmth in-like-a-lion and out-  
like-a-lamb and since they'd come in his car she walked.   
  
I'm here, Mulder, she thought, because the girl with the hat told me to   
be.  
  
Remember me. Remember me; access that human genetic memory of all   
things and all things possible and find me there, and know what I've   
been through that's brought me here. "A lot a lot a lot," you say,   
cartoon-like, but I'm somewhere else. Find me.  
  
She'd looked at Mulder, lying there splayed and exhaled, at peace where   
they'd found each other in sleep. She looked at him, and the act of   
observing changed him.  
  
The girl with the hat knew what she wanted. The girl with the hat made   
the right choices, or would have, had the world not stood in her way.  
  
It was years ago, Mulder, when the girl with the hat met him. Him,   
Daniel, and some bar on South Grand street -- Jack, make it a double,   
soda back she never touched, and another one, and another one, and she   
stared at her hands wrapped around her glass, wielding the weight of   
its heavy bottom, wondering if it was hard enough to smash a human   
skull.  
  
*  
  
"Dana," he said, daring to meet her eye. "We've got to talk about this.   
What's going on, here?"  
  
She laughed, release on release. "We do," she said.  
  
"I've got a life, you know," he said. It wasn't a question.  
  
"I know," she said. "I am fully aware."  
  
"I like my life," he said, as if it was defense. "I don't want to wreck   
it if I..."  
  
"If you what?" she asked, bold now.  
  
"I love you, Dana," he said, his eyes wide like a child and something   
about his innocence, his vulnerability stilled her, made her skin   
crawl.  
  
"Okay," she said, the stoic, the girl who knew everything, the girl   
he'd fallen so hard for.  
  
"I need to know what you want."  
  
Here was the ride of melodrama, the ride of mystery, the test to take   
for this man whose back she'd watched when he was turned away, her   
hands fluttering up stretching of their own accord to touch untouchable   
him. She slapped them down, every time, like they were criminals.  
  
But here was the ride of melodrama, the chance to test her destructive   
power, the chance to find out if what she wanted was what she wanted.  
  
Later her friends would say it wasn't her fault. Later they'd say it   
was his choice, his responsibility, that he'd wrecked his own life,   
that he'd wanted to. That she was without blame.   
  
But later her girlfriends were less willing to talk to her, less   
willing to invite her out when they'd spend Saturdays with boyfriends   
eating fried chicken.  
  
Later they shielded themselves against her -- her, homewrecker and   
siren and Helen of Troy.  
  
Here she looked at him, as always, before leaping.  
  
"I need to know what you want," he said.  
  
"I want to spend the rest of my life with you," she said, not even   
believing the words as they tumbled into tumblers of whiskey. It was   
bait. It was what it would take to have this man; it was her chance at   
chance.  
  
But now he laughed.  
  
"I have a life, Dana! Why would I want to spend the rest of my life   
with a starry-eyed student who didn't have a clue about the way the   
world worked?"  
  
And there at the bar, that first night, through the tremolo in his   
voice, she'd known he was lying.  
  
Two more drinks and he reached across the table, warm, gentle hands on   
either side of her face, and he kissed her.  
  
He got another phone line, just for her. Told his wife it was for work.   
She'd call, leave him a message and he'd call her back and they'd meet   
somewhere, tear each other's clothes off in the car. She'd give him   
presents he couldn't keep, write him letters he'd destroy.  
  
He'd come over at night and they'd set the alarm, fall asleep in each   
other's arms till 4:48 when the radio would come on and he'd kiss her   
on the forehead and crawl out, and she'd feign sleep till he was gone   
and then get up to lock the door behind him.  
  
*  
  
The girl with the hat dodged bullets, Mulder, in the name of   
possibility. The girl with the hat loved the intrigue, loved the   
mystery and boundary of this man who was so brilliant and untouchable   
his touch burned her.  
  
The girl with the hat took the globe of a man's life in her hands like   
a bauble and juggled it, laughing.  
  
*  
  
"Hey," she said when the phone rang.  
  
"I miss you," Daniel said.  
  
"I miss you too," she said.  
  
"I haven't seen you in days," he said.  
  
She corrected him. "One day."  
  
"It's a LOT," he laughed.  
  
"You'll see me in class tomorrow," she said.  
  
"I want to see you tonight. What are you...what are you up to?"  
  
She leaned back on the couch, put her feet up on the armrest.   
"Nothing," she said. "Work."   
  
Voices in the background. "Maggie's home for the weekend," he said.  
  
"Uh huh," she said. "I'm gonna hang up now. I'll talk to you later."  
  
"No!" he said, playful baby-voice like he was trying to seduce her, but   
it came out creepy. "Talk to me."  
  
"Maggie's home," she said. "Go be with your family."  
  
"It's okay," he said. "I...um...I told Barbara I loved you. I told   
Maggie, too."  
  
The girl with the hat scraped through the drawer of the end table to   
find her roommate's cigarettes. She lit one, took a long drag and tried   
to marry the combination of flattery and perversity.  
  
"Oh," she said. "What did she say?"  
  
"I want to see you," he said. "When can I see you?"  
  
She exhaled, a ribbon of smoke sped through her lips. "You can come by   
now," she said. "Come get me."  
  
"I'm on my way," he said, smile breaking larger in his voice.  
  
*  
  
She's cruel, Mulder. Someone once told her what she was supposed to   
want, and this was it and she didn't know what to do. This was it,   
Mulder, the man and the life and the family all in one swing of the   
battleaxe, severed heads clattering to bloodied earth.  
  
In one breath she could sell her soul.  
  
*  
  
He picked her up in his Mercedes and took her to the docks. She was   
wearing the sunglasses he'd helped her pick out, the ones he'd paid   
for. Dusk approached but she didn't want to take them off, and instead   
stared into the flame of sunset and let the dark take the reins.  
  
"So, look," he said, pointing. Off the harbor a sailboat was moored and   
he started toward it. "What do you think?"  
  
"It's nice," she played light. "Is it yours?"  
  
"It's mine for the week," he said.  
  
He was carrying a suitcase and she refused to think about it.  
  
Crosslegged on the deck she watched him untie sailor's knots in   
silence.  
  
"So Barbara kicked me out of the house," he said as if it were "there's   
beer in the cooler."  
  
"FUCK," she said, rising. "Why didn't you tell me?"  
  
"I'm telling you now," he said. "So listen." He sat down beside her,   
rested those familiar hands on her knees. "I got the boat so we could   
go away somewhere together. You once asked me what I wanted. This is   
what I want. I've already called in to work and told them I'm taking   
the week off. I think we should do this. I think we have to."  
  
She looked past him, through tinted lenses out at the sliver of sun   
being eaten by the horizon.  
  
*  
  
She could have gone, then, Mulder. But the problem was the same, the   
problem was what it always had been, and what it always would be.  
  
She'd fallen in love with him for the battleaxe swoop of family.   
Without family, he wasn't what she thought she wanted; he was broken,   
tainted, stained, by her hands. All that was fragmented, cheap and   
vicious about her, all that was unwhole and unmoored would transfer to   
him/them; his power removed he would rest his head on her stronger   
shoulder and beg to sleep, beg to be taken care of, and she would have   
lost what she'd had.  
  
He went home.  
  
Quantum theory says the act of observing has the effect of changing the   
observed.   
  
*  
  
When Scully awoke, Mulder was still sleeping. The clock read 4:48, and   
she leaned over and kissed Mulder on the forehead before getting up to   
get dressed.  
  
She vaguely remembered falling asleep, vaguely remembered Mulder   
leading her, half-awake and stumbling, to the bed. She barely   
remembered wrestling out of her stockings, hardly recalled sliding out   
of her skirt and climbing, bra and underwear on and face-first under   
the covers.  
  
With everything like clarity she remembered Mulder next to her,   
smelling like sweat and man, hot bare skin against her back and flesh   
slackened with half-sleep, sticky like clay. His arm was heavy when it   
slumped across her chest.  
  
*  
  
She had walked well beyond where she'd left her car, blocks and blocks   
and miles. The sun was up, and pink it stained the sky a sickly grey-  
green.   
  
She shivered, though the morning was warm, and briefly, clutching her   
jacket around her and pulling herself up on tiptoes toward the sun she   
wondered why she'd left.  
  
The girl with the hat dodged bullets, took Scully where she needed to   
go. Where Daniel had been life, family, domesticity, Mercedes and   
family practice and six figure salary and a house with a yard Mulder   
was half-asleep after thirty-nine waking hours, couch cushions   
imprinting his cheek and a refrigerator empty of anything but pickles   
and beer.  
  
She'd found Mulder because she was supposed to, fell asleep beside him   
because it was home.   
  
Quantum theory says the act of observing has the effect of changing the   
observed.  
  
And turning back to go get her car, the girl with the hat knew that   
Mulder had not gotten up to lock the door behind her when she left.  
  



End file.
